Online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which relies on volunteer contributions, has tightened its security still further in a bid to stop online vandalism.

The idea is that pages will be semi-protected to prevent a certain percent of the newest registered uses and all unregistered users editing a page.

Semi-protection will only apply if it is a page subject to serious vandalism, and will not be applied as a method to resolve editorial disputes. It will only be applied when a page suddenly becomes high profile due to current events or if a page gets slashdotted.

According to a Wikipedia spokesman the move is not important and is just one of many changes that are coming soon. This includes the ability to put a page into a 'validated' state (better name should be determined) and so on.

"Treating this as a major policy change is therefore a huge huge error being made by people who have no understanding of how Wikipedia works," the spokesman said.

Wikipedia has been under a bit of pressure to do something more about vandalism after one biography page said a former reporter friend of the Kennedies was involved in Robert Kennedy's assassination.